In recent years, the Internet has been expanding at a furious pace. One reason for the rapid expansion of the Internet is the popularity of the free services that are available thereon. A company can fund free or reduced cost services on the Internet with revenue generated from advertisers. As a particular website increases in popularity and the viewer traffic increases, advertisers become more likely to increase their advertising budget in order to reach the growing audience.
Unfortunately, there exists a potential problem with the above-described business model that threatens to undermine the rapid expansion of the Internet. Specifically, this problem relates to the ineffectiveness of reaching target audiences on the Internet via the advertisements (“ads”) displayed on web pages. If the perceived value of Internet advertising is reduced, it can trigger a reduction of advertising revenue which, in turn, could slow the rapid expansion of the Internet and reduce the availability of free services on the Internet.
One reason for the ineffectiveness of Internet advertising is the tendency for web sites to refresh advertisements displayed in advertising spaces with new advertisements. Since advertising revenue is often based on the number of ads displayed, the ads are refreshed quite frequently in order to display as many ads as possible. Typically, a user “responds” to an advertisement (“ad”) by pointing to it with a mouse and then clicking on the ad. This action will link the user to a website represented by the ad. Unfortunately, the faster the ads are displayed, the less likely it is that web users will have an opportunity to respond to them. For example, if a user is in the middle of a search or reading a particular web page displayed, it can be highly disruptive to immediately stop the task at hand and click on an ad that piques his or her interest. However, when the user is finished with the particular task he or she may wish to click on an ad that was seen while working, but most likely that ad will not be displayed.